bk-advisors/africa-causes-of-death-film

A data film visualization story of Africa's causes of death in 2021 # 8.3 Million: Causes of Death in Africa, 2021 An interactive data film. About nine minutes of narrated, choreographed animation over the WHO Global Health Estimates 2021 for the African Region, in the tradition of Neil Halloran's *The Fallen of World War II*: a linear, narrated presentation you can pause at any point to step into the charts and explore the numbers yourself. Every dot on screen is 1,000 deaths. All 8.3 million deaths recorded for the 47-country WHO African Region in 2021 are on stage at once, re-forming from scene to scene: by cause group, by age band, by individual cause. **Companion pieces:** - The written story, the scrollytelling article this film is adapted from - The explorable, the same dataset as a zoomable icicle with no narrative ## How it works No build step and no framework: static ES modules, canvas 2D, and the Web Audio API. Serve the folder over HTTP and open it. - `js/engine.js` is the film engine, a master clock over time-stamped "beats" (idempotent state-setters) plus an independent caption track. Seeking replays all beats up to the target time with snap, so the scrubber, resize, and replay all reconstruct any point in the film through one path. - `js/dots.js` is the particle pool: ~8,300 dots, each carrying a (cause, age band) identity, tweening between formations along curved staggered paths. Rendering is sprite-batched. - `js/layouts.js` holds the formation factories: scattered field, spiral cluster, dot towers, horizontal dot bars, and 100%-stacked share columns. Each also draws its own direct labels and registers hover regions. - `js/scenes.js` is the script: nine chapters of beats and captions. All chart numbers are computed from the dataset at load time. - `js/score.js` is a generative ambient score (detuned pad, breathing lowpass, feedback delays). Each chapter hands the pad a new chord and mood. No audio files. Mute with the note button or `m`. - `data/` holds auto-generated ES modules from the WHO GHE 2021 xlsx (sa …